


Skinner's Dilemma

by Allikizme



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Early in Canon, F/M, Nothing explicit, Office Sex, Skinner's POV, i had fun with this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-26 03:20:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4988161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allikizme/pseuds/Allikizme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poor Skinner keeps finding his golden pair in compromising positions, and it's getting a little out of hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skinner's Dilemma

**Author's Note:**

> I had to post sometihng I have so much unfinished x files shit written it's killing me. Also I know the reason for the fight is stupid k

Skinner looked at the file that had just come across his desk. A potential case in Missouri. Four dead by what appeared to be ritual sacrifice. He grimaced as he flipped through the photos. They were really quite gruesome.

Something like this, Skinner thought, would fit snugly in the X files. He scowled as he skimmed the reports of the detectives working the case. Yes, seemed very much up Mulder’s alley.

But, he supposed, it could just be a run of the mill cult thing that he maybe ought to assign to one of the newer agents, like Kermit or Heinz. He glanced at the small pile of folders waiting for him to look through. Could be something even weirder in there.

He glanced at them all and deduced that no, there wasn’t. Which meant that he had a semi-X file that he didn’t know what to do with.

Mulder would probably take it. He leapt at the chance for anything remotely like this.

Then again, thought Skinner, Mulder _did_ just get back from that case about the guy and the thing. Maybe he was tired and deserved a break to just, well, look at the stars or whatever he did.

He supposed he could _ask_ Mulder.

Skinner nodded to himself. Yes. Good plan. He picked up the phone to call Mulder up to his office, but changed his mind. He hadn’t been out of the office all day! This was a good chance to go stretch his legs and get in that “suggested” fifteen minutes of physical activity or whatever the government was saying they should do.

He picked up the file, got out of his chair, and left the office. On the way out he waved to his secretary, Jennifer, and asked if she maybe wanted anything from the machine. She said yes, a diet soda, please.

Skinner took the scenic route through the building. He walked through the many bustling desks and smiled at anyone who looked up at him. You know, let them know they were doing a good job or something. He was feeling pretty good about himself when he finally reached the elevator, rode it down to the basement, and walked in on Agent Mulder engrossed in what was between Agent Scully’s legs.

“Mulder, I was wondering—Jesus _Christ!_ ” Skinner gawked. Scully was lying on the desk, her skirt hitched up past her hips. She was bright red in the face, and her legs were wrapped tightly around Mulder’s head. Mulder’s tongue was somewhere Skinner found highly unsanitary.

He looked away as quickly as he could, but the image was burned on his retinas. He would probably need new glasses. “Holy shit,” he mumbled. “Holy _shit._ ”

“Sir I can explain.” Scully’s voice was raw and reedy, as if she had been shouting.

Skinner really didn’t know what to do about this, except that maybe he should try that with his wife. But otherwise… good lord. In the _office._

“It’s my fault, sir, Agent Scully shouldn’t be blamed at all,” Mulder said, and he sounded hoarse.

Skinner hesitated. “Can I… turn around now?”

“Yes,” they said together.

So Skinner turned. The two of them were standing behind the desk, looking about as put together as the table he’d bought from Ikea last year. He’d known Scully was a blusher—he’d seen her angry enough times to know how easily the blood flooded her face—but _Mulder._ Mulder was so red Skinner was afraid he might’ve blown a vessel.

Skinner _really_ didn’t know what to do. He was struggling to remember what the protocol for this was. Suspension? Transfer? Neither of those seemed like good options.

He cleared his throat. The two of them were watching him, waiting for punishment. “I just wanted to ask you,” Skinner said carefully, “if you might be interested in this case.”

Mulder and Scully both looked like the rug had just been pulled out from under them. Mulder swallowed and said, “Huh?”

“I was thinking,” Skinner went on, a little louder, “of giving it to someone else, but now I can see the two of you are… getting bored.” He smiled, and it probably didn’t look happy. “So it’s yours.” He laid it carefully on the desk—where Scully’s head had been a few moments ago—and walked out of the office, hoping he never had to see that again.

He saw it again next week.

This time, though, Skinner had a legitimate reason to bother Mulder. Agent Krycek had been spotted in Alexandria, Virginia, and Skinner needed to talk to Mulder about the delicate position they both were in regarding the former agent.

And of course ended up seeing another kind of delicate position.

This time, Mulder was on the receiving end. His tie was loose around his neck, his shirt looked like it had been ripped open, and he was supporting himself with the desk behind him. He looked so completely wrecked that Skinner was actually a little jealous.

As soon as Skinner walked in (the door had been open, for chrissake) Scully got off her knees and onto her feet. Mulder struggled to make himself decent, and Skinner saw a lot more of the man than he really ever wanted to.

Skinner said, “What the fuck, guys.”

“You should’ve knocked,” Mulder said weakly.

“You had the door _open._ Open door!”

Scully looked up at Mulder. “You didn’t shut the door?”

“Well, you didn’t really give me time to—.”

“Are you two not busy enough?” Skinner cried. “Do you need more work? Because I can give you more work.” Silence. Skinner couldn’t decide if he was angry or not. Standing before him were two outstanding agents looking like schoolchildren. One with a raging boner that Skinner could fucking see from the doorway.

“Stop having sex in the office,” he decided. He felt like he ought to add an “or else” there, but he wasn’t really sure what the “or else” would be. So he nodded, mostly to himself, and left the X files.

They probably didn’t stop. Skinner just kept inventing ways to avoid going down there, which really wasn’t that hard. He had an entire building to run, Mulder and Scully were minute on the scale of things he had to deal with. But still, things kept cropping up that required Mulder or Scully or the both of them. Every time he saw them, it was clear that they all were transported back to those awkward encounters. And while it was funny to see these two so distraught, Skinner couldn’t really enjoy it.

Finally, Skinner found them a case that sent them off to Michigan, and he had some peace of mind for awhile.

Until he got a phone call from the local PD there.

“Excuse me, Mr. Skinner?” the sheriff said. “I’m the local sheriff here working with Agents Sculder and—excuse me. Mulder and Scully.”

“Yes, has something happened?”

He could hear the man scratching his beard. “Well, they don’t really seem to get along.”

Skinner’s chair tipped back a little too far and he swung his arms wildly to regain his balance. “They aren’t getting along?”

“No sir, they’re pretty… snippy, I guess is the word. I dunno. Maybe they don’t know each other too well yet. Or they do, and that’s the problem. But it’s not really helping this investigation, whatever it is.”

Skinner pursed his lips and nodded. “I’ll talk with them. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.” He hung up the phone and frowned at the empty space around his desk. The golden pair—fighting? Oh god. What if they were having a _couple_ problem?

This made Skinner nervous. How could they continue to work together if they ended up breaking up? What could he do to prevent this? He was no counselor, and, hell, his romantic life was a mess too. He scrubbed at his chin, and then he picked up his office phone, looked up Agent Mulder’s number on the piece of paper taped to his desk, and dialed.

“ _Mulder,_ ” said the familiar gruff voice.

“Agent Mulder,” Skinner greeted, and he smiled, because he’d read somewhere that smiling boosted… something. Never mind. He put his signature scowl back on. “I just received a call from the local PD where you are, and they told me something… disconcerting… about you and Agent Scully.”

“ _Can’t be any more disconcerting than this case._ ”

Skinner paused, because that didn’t make much sense. “Is Agent Scully with you?”

“ _Unfortunately._ ”

“Put me on speaker.”

“ _Scully, it’s Skinner._ ”

“ _Oh really? You’re sure about it this time?_ ”

“ _Come on._ ”

“ _Maybe you should ask him what he’s wearing._ ”

Skinner’s frown became concerned. “Ahem. Scully, Mulder, uh, I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you, but it’s interfering with your work.”

“ _Nothing is going on between us, sir. At all._ ”

“ _What the fuck, Dana!? How was I supposed to know she’d be here?_ ”

“ _Your behavior was uncouth, Mulder._ ”

“ _Uncouth? I didn’t_ do _anything!_ She _did._ ”

Skinner tried to say something, but Scully cut him off. It was like listening to his parents fight. “ _You’ve done an awful lot lately. Thinking you can get away with it._ ”

“ _With_ what _?_ ”

“Look,” Skinner said, lifting a hand even though they couldn’t see him, “I don’t care _what_ happened, all right? I don’t care! I care that this case gets solved in the same timely manner I have come to expect from the two of you. So either work it out or wait till you’re back in DC, because I won’t have whatever romance interfering with Bureau work. Am I clear?”

There was silence.

“Am I clear!?”

“ _Yes sir,_ ” came the simultaneous reply.

Skinner hung up, nodding to himself, telling himself he’d done all he could. And the rest could wait till they got back.

The case was solved the next day, surprisingly. As soon as he heard they were off the plane Skinner called them both into his office. And that was how in a few short hours Walter Skinner had two coiled springs of anger for agents in his office.

How to go about this. Skinner’s eyes shifted from Scully, looking like a cat ready to pounce, her legs crossed tight and her arms feigning relaxation—to Mulder, who was sitting up so straight Skinner feared he may strain something.

“So,” he said finally, because how else did one start something like this, “care to explain what happened in Michigan?”

Neither moved, or if they did, it was to tighten up more.

“Someone better talk,” he prompted. “Because that was inexcusable.”

Mulder started to chew on his lower lip. Scully blinked.

“Agent Mulder,” Scully said, after another minute of silence, “was confronted by an ex-girlfriend who happened to reside in town. She then obtained Agent Mulder’s personal cell phone number—.”

“She stalked me,” Mulder said.

Scully looked at him so quickly Skinner winced, because surely that hurt her neck. “And requested to meet up with him.”

“She told me she had information relevant to the case,” Mulder stated. “So I went to meet her.”

“Without informing me,” Scully snapped.

“ _Because,_ ” Mulder said, “Agent Scully had requested I leave her alone for the rest of the day. I am still unclear as to why she asked this.”

Skinner looked between them, waiting. “And then?”

“And then,” Scully said, “I saw Agent Mulder meeting with this woman in the parking lot of the adult store.”

“We’re still unclear as to what the hell Scully was _doing_ in the adult store in the first place.”

“I saw,” Scully raised her voice, “Mulder and the woman kissing.”

The words rang throughout the office like a funeral bell. Skinner glanced between the two of them. Scully’s body language had, impossibly, gotten tenser, and her skin had obtained a healthy flush. Mulder, meanwhile, had shut down. His eyes had drawn little shutters behind them and he had folded himself up as best he could in the little chair.

Skinner took a deep breath through his nose, trying to decide. Hell, he could smell the hostility. “Is what she says true, Agent Mulder?”

Mulder gave one nod. “Yes.”

“See?” Scully cried. “He admits it!”

“Oh will you give it a rest, Scully?” Mulder retorted. “She kissed me! For a _second!_ I threw her off! Or did you miss that from the window of the sex shop, huh?”

“You have no right to—.”

“What the hell were you even doing in there?” Mulder cried. “You wanted to be left alone so you could go someplace like that?” His voice cracked.

Skinner looked at Scully. “Is what he says true, Agent Scully?”

Scully looked like she would rather swallow poison than answer his question. “Yes,” she said, though he didn’t see her lips move.

Mulder gave an exaggerated gesture and looked at Skinner, waiting.

Skinner watched Scully. “What were you doing there?”

Tick tick tick and Scully unraveled, unfurled. “You really want to know what I was doing there? I was shopping! God knows why I thought it’d be a good idea to do that. _This_ is what I get for trying to do something for a man.”

Skinner blinked. “You were buying lingerie.”

“Among other things, yes.”

“For… for Mulder.”

“Do I need to spell it out, sir?”

Mulder looked at her. “You—uh. What?”

Scully took a deep breath. “I was buying some things I thought you would like,” she said, each syllable terse and uncomfortable.

There was a most pregnant pause. Skinner wondered if the heat he felt on his face was visible. Then Mulder reached over and gently held Scully’s wrist, and she flinched.

“Scully I didn’t know,” he murmured. “And I want you to know I would never have gone near her if I hadn’t really thought she’d had info.” And he may as well have kissed her mouth, the way Scully sort of bloomed.

“I know,” she whispered. “I just… I get nervous. I really want this to work, Fox.”

Fox? Skinner abruptly stood up. “Um,” he said. Mulder was looking at Scully softly, now. Too softly. And she was responding with heat. Uh oh. “You’re excused.” Please get out of my office before you start fucking on my desk.

“If you need us we’ll be downstairs,” Scully said, but she wasn’t looking at Skinner. She was looking deeply at Mulder, and he was looking softly at her. They stayed like that for so long Skinner had to clear his throat to get them moving. Finally, they were out of his office. Skinner allowed himself to sit down and relax.

He put a little note on his desk, to remind himself to always call the X files before visiting.


End file.
